Mar., 1906 | 
SUMMER NOTES FROM A SANTA BARBARA GARDEN 
47 
long in such close proximity to man. I tried to get a photograph of one standing 
on tiptoes and stretching his neck to reach up for a drop, but the sun did not 
strike the spot until its rays were too weak to get anything satisfactory and all my 
attempts were failures. 
Yet bright as these wren-tits seemed in some ways they showed a good deal 
of stupidity, in common with several other species, in another way. The Indian 
mortar shown in the cut of my first attempt at photographing birds (The Condor, 
Vol. VII, No. 6, p. 179) was much resorted to by many birds; but as the summer 
waned and the sun southed it was too much in the shade for the use of the cam- 
era, except for a very little while in the afternoon when perhaps a mockingbird 
(Mimus polyglottos leucopterus ) might happen along in a thirsty mood at the proper 
moment when the sun struck it, most of the others coming too early or too late for 
the sunshine. I conceived the idea of putting another mortar, this one being too 
heavy to move, a short distance away but in the sun for some hours at a stretch — 
WREN-TITS GETTING READY TO BATHE 
and leading the water to it. This new mortar was placed about four feet away 
from, but in plain sight of the old one, and yet the customary visitors could not 
become accustomed to the change for a long while. They would come to the old 
place, jump into the bowl tho not a drop of water was in it, jump out again, stand 
on the edge and appear perplexed only to repeat the whole performance over and 
over again; and yet they would not go to the new place but four feet off where 
the water was dripping musically all day long. Some individuals would hop 
down into the old mortar and go thru the motions of taking a bath, actually 
raising dust from the dry sediment as they fluttered their wings, and did not have 
sense enough to know better, apparently. At first this holding aloof from the new 
watering place struck me as being perhaps due to fear of it, but this was not really 
the case as there was nothing there to cause such a feeling, and the only conclu- 
sion possible was that it was either dense stupidity on the part of the birds or else 
litter inability to believe that such a change in conditions could have taken place. 
The wren-tits were the first to get accustomed to the new state of affairs, but 
